Accelerate Digital Transformation and Remove the Development Cycle
Modern insurance is ages different than what it was just a decade ago, and insurance companies realize they need to become more agile as the global economy becomes increasingly real-time. Moreover, the COVID-19 pandemic has necessitated an extreme form of agility that enables businesses to adapt to rapidly changing circumstances.
Digital transformation requires more from insurance companies than having a web presence and maybe a mobile app. It requires a concentrated focus on customer and employee experiences featuring a broad palette of self-help components, easy access to data, process automation and optimization, and artificial intelligence. To meet customer demands for omnichannel experiences, companies need to tweak the underlying code beneath their applications. This can be time-consuming and expensive.
A key differentiator leading to easy innovation is the no-code/low-code solution offered by insurtechs, which helps keep up with the rapid pace of change.
What are low-code and no-code?
Low-code and no-code both provide a way to build/modify applications, create/enhance digital experiences, and automate processes.
Using no-code, resources without technical development skills can reduce time to market and speed up time to value.
Low-code is an approach towards software development providing for a small and more easily understood coding process in application development; rather than writing code in complex programming languages, developers can integrate by simply matching data values with an application programming interface (API). The result is often a brand-new feature extension that makes the core application more efficient and less cumbersome for the customer. A digital payment portal to pay for an insurance policy after coverages and limits are selected is a prime example. Continuing to accelerate digital transformation is the number one reason the most IT heads chose a low-code platform, with nearly 70% focused on completing digital transformation work1.
Using no-code, resources without technical development skills can reduce time to market and speed up time to value by building the bulk of an application visually. Using no-code allows the user to add and remove data fields and drag-and-drop the layout of fields on user interfaces to get the format they want without additional programming.
The availability of these two concepts is a huge differentiator offering ease of implementation and maintenance for mission-critical applications and are an important reason why independent agents choose digital payments platforms like those offered by Input 1.
Why the Insurance Industry is Adopting Low-Code and No-Code
Insurance companies face competitive pressures to deliver better customer experiences and achieve greater operational efficiencies. Additionally, to stay ahead of the competition, they must meet these needs quickly, which is often challenged by the lack of available technological resources.
Solutions that allow rapid implementation and configuration without the need to involve technology personnel are what make all the difference.
New add-on services offered by insurtechs are indeed popping up regularly, and many of these will help extend the features and services offered by insurance companies and MGAs. However, these extensions, for all their benefits, can be rigid in their implementation and usage. They may add a new feature, but it may not be easy to use, and it may not provide a fluid and pleasant experience for the user.
Customers (agents and policyholders) don’t just want additional features. They want them (read, “demand them”) exactly as they want them. Rigid solutions require the customer to adhere to the flow imposed by the carrier platform. Solutions that allow rapid implementation and configuration without the need to involve technology personnel are what make all the difference.
Low-code and no-code solutions provide substantial assistance in this area, as they can reduce development time by potentially 90%2.
Imagine allowing teams to rapidly build and deploy software that isn’t just “customizable” – it’s entirely bespoke and addresses how a specific business works. It isn’t just “flexible” – a business’s internal team can change it whenever needed without having to recruit technology personnel.
Win With Customer Experience
Insurance companies are realizing that their core systems do not provide the exclusive experience that their teams and customers require. Increasingly, they’re taking advantage of third-party add-on services that can help improve the employee and customer experience at the same time, such as automatically populating an online or mobile form with customer or policyholder information by leveraging a data provider’s application programming interface (API). This eliminates the need for the policyholder to fill out long forms with information that is expected to be known by the insurance company.
No-code makes it possible for those closest to the work – even those without developer resources – to build their apps exactly how they want them.
Low-code and no-code solutions help insurance companies minimize the impact of the talent shortage by making their employees more productive. No-code makes it possible for those closest to the work – even those without developer resources – to build their apps exactly how they want them. Meanwhile, the insurance brand’s unique experience allows customers and policyholders to benefit – something that’s much more difficult using much of today’s available commercial off-the-shelf software.
Efficiency is the Bottom Line
By embracing low-code and no-code solutions, insurance companies can stay competitive and innovate. To be more precise, they’re providing the kinds of multichannel experiences their customers, policyholders, and underwriters expect by creating applications and improving business process efficiency.
Behind the scenes, ROI and operational efficiency have been improved by low-code and no-code solutions in ways that just weren’t possible using only traditional core systems. Teams can move faster, break free of silos, and grow – while opening up precious engineering resources and increasing their app-building capacity. No-code/low-code empowers general business users to create things previously only specialists could produce.
1outsystems.com, The State of Application Development
2redhat.com, Intelligent Process Automation and the Emergence of Digital Automation Platforms
